The construction of objective tests for native language reading comprehension is described. The tests were designed for the early secondary school years in several kinds of schools, vocational and non-vocational. The description focuses on the use of the Rasch model in test development, to develop a large pool of homogenous items and establish…

The traditional multiple-choice reading comprehension test of English as a second language, used in the Dutch school-leaving examinations, has been criticized for its apparent lack of construct validity. The Dutch National Institute for Educational Measurement has conducted a number of studies to determine whether there is a different skill…

Since the mid-1960s, the use of objective testing in education, and multiple-choice tests in particular, has increased dramatically in the Netherlands. Since the founding of the Dutch National Institute for Educational Measurement in 1968, the construction of many achievement tests has been concentrated there. This general changeover from…

Presented in this symposium reader are nine papers, four of which deal with the theory and impact of the Rasch model on language testing and five of which discuss final examinations in secondary schools in both general and specific terms. The papers are: "Introduction to Rasch Measurement: Some Implications for Language Testing" (J. J.…